North Carolina's state budget is now nearly four months overdue. For public school employees, that means the school year started without a cost-of-living raise. Many educators are feeling the financial crunch amid other rising costs. WUNC is sharing a few of their stories in the series “From Politics to Paychecks.”
When Millbrook High School teacher Tre Woods clocked out at his second job at 11:30 p.m. on a recent Sunday night in Raleigh, he was met with an unpleasant surprise in the parking lot.
"I'm so excited to go home and get in bed and get ready for the next week," Woods recalled. "I put my key in the ignition, and I turn. It doesn't turn on. Ughh, you know? It's just like the worst feeling ever."
Woods tried jumping the battery, then decided he didn't have time to deal with it, because he had classes to teach the next morning. So he called his husband to pick him up, hoping it was just a dead battery, but wondering if it was something more.
"What a scary proposition. Then me and Capital One are going to become even closer than we already are," Woods chuckled, as he thought about the cost of repairing his car or buying a new one.
Woods is only half joking. As a young teacher, credit cards are his answer to unexpected expenses. That's despite the fact that he works as a full-time English teacher in Wake County Schools and up to 20 hours a week as a restaurant server. He's married, and his spouse has a higher salary, but he still struggles to make ends meet.
And he’s not alone. Public school employees across the state started the school year without a cost-of-living raise. And many are feeling the financial crunch, as health care and other costs continue to rise.
Policy changes drove Woods to get a second job, but he remains committed to a career in teaching
Woods makes just over $50,000 a year, a salary made possible by the fact that Wake County Schools now offers the highest average local salary supplement for teachers of any school district in the state, based on state data. Most early-career teachers in North Carolina are paid less due to less local funding.
"We're not destitute by any means," Woods said. "But we're two professionals and I just feel like we should be able to consider buying a house and make payments on our student loans and it not be a struggle."
On many counts, Woods is doing well for a 24-year-old on his salary. He and his husband bought a house last year, and he's been paying his student loans since the Trump administration resumed collections on federal loan repayments. Woods feared that the new administration's stance on student loan forgiveness might endanger his ability to earn public service loan forgiveness for teaching, so he started paying them down this year.
Both the loan payments and mortgage are straining their family budget, and they're the reason why Woods got a second job. Still, Woods says, he hopes to make teaching his long-term career.
"It sucks. I wish that I could just be on the weekends using that time to recuperate or go above and beyond for my students," Woods said.
State budget delay has teachers waiting for a raise
The Trump administration's decision to halt student loan forgiveness programs earlier this year was a political policy that affected Woods' pocketbook directly. Just like the delay on a state budget means Woods doesn't know if he'll get a raise for this school year, or what it might be.
In recent state budgets, North Carolina lawmakers have targeted raises, especially for early-career teachers, but Woods doubts whether that will continue. The unknowns give him anxiety.
"Policymakers are making decisions about how much money to invest in public schools, how much to invest in private school vouchers, right?" Woods said. "And those decisions which are so abstract, are so real in our family and in my spreadsheet."
Woods says it makes him uneasy to have these questions play out publicly, where he has to rely on news reports to understand his pay, instead of having a performance review determine his next raise.
And Woods is frustrated that as the school year keeps moving forward, he keeps doing his job, while lawmakers make no progress on a budget.
"I've been teaching for weeks. We're coming up on the end of our first quarter. I've given tests. My students have written essays and completed projects and no budget," Woods said.
Republican leaders in the North Carolina House and Senate have indicated that due to their impasse over big questions like tax cuts, teacher pay, and Medicaid, they don't expect to pass a state budget this year.
